Brand Awareness: What It Is, Why It Is Important, and How To Build It

When someone asks for a tissue, what’s the first brand that comes to mind? Perhaps you’ve heard people identify themselves based on their choice of a sneaker, smartphone, or preferred grocery store. This is brand awareness—the extent to which a brand is recognized by potential customers and correctly associated with a particular product or service. Brand awareness embeds itself into people’s’ lifestyles and purchasing habits. The more familiar people are with something, the more they trust it and gravitate to it, so much so that consumers don’t have to think twice before repeating their purchase time and time again. Focusing on brand awareness will help your business stand out above your competition. What can brand awareness do for you? A higher level of brand awareness typically equates to higher sales and a larger market share.

Brand Recognition and Brand Recall vs. Brand Awareness

What are the differences among brand recognition, brand recall, and brand awareness? If a consumer can correctly identify your brand based on visual indicators, such as your logo and your corporate colors, that’s brand recognition. The strategy for brand recognition is to keep your company, or your product, at the forefront of consumers’ minds.

Building on brand recognition is brand recall. Brand recall is the extent to which a brand name is remembered as a member of a type of product or service. For example, recalling the brand name of different automobiles. Brand recall plays a critical role in getting your customers to repeat the purchase of your product.

Brand awareness is built on both brand recognition and brand recall. This occurs when the public can recall information, or a feeling about your business, your products, or your services. When a business has achieved a level of brand awareness, customers are able to quickly identify that your product, or service, will best fit their need or solve their problem.

Establishing Brand Awareness

Brand awareness doesn’t happen overnight. Rather, it is a result of multiple efforts focused on earning the attention, loyalty, and respect of your target audience. So, just how do you create brand awareness?

Tell a Story

These aren’t “once upon a time” bedtime stories; rather, storytelling within a marketing context is all about illustrating how your organization’s mission relates to its products and services, and about how your product or service is unique. Storytelling is an incredibly powerful marketing tactic, whether you’re marketing products or promoting your brand. Its power comes from giving your audience something real to latch onto.

Crafting a narrative around your brand gives it depth. Weaving that narrative into your marketing allows you to market your brand alongside your products or services. The key is to figure out why customers should care about what you have to offer and create stories that support those claims in an entertaining way. What should your story be about? Anything, as long as it’s true. It can be a narrative of your founder or the story of how your business had its first product idea. Do you have a bed and breakfast? Highlight the types of vacation memories families can create if they stay with you. Selling tennis shoes? Partner with some local running clubs to share the benefits of running. People like hearing stories, and it can lead to a boost in brand awareness.

Utilize Interactive Content

How many times have you seen quiz results shared online? It’s easy to see that interactive content gains more attention than static content. Interactive content is any type of content that requires the participation of the site visitor. Quizzes, contests, calculators, assessments, and interactive infographics are the top five types of interactive content.

Promote User-Generated Content

The good news is that obtaining and promoting user-generated content doesn’t have to be difficult. It’s often as simple as asking users for permission to repurpose their content for your brand. The experience of being mentioned and having content shared on social media is fun for many customers. The partnership often results in an increase in audience exposure for both parties. Start by telling your audience that you are seeking user-generated content. It is important to be clear as to which types of content you are looking and knowing which social channels will have the most impact.

Brand awareness is a powerful concept that can have a major impact on your marketing efforts, consumer perception, and revenue. At Safeguard by Innovative, we know that the key to building brand recognition, brand recall, and brand awareness is to be consistent so that you can strengthen your image in the eyes of your audience with every encounter. Does your organization need an extra hand building brand recognition, recall, and awareness, or with developing your marketing campaign? If so, we are here as the one resource for all of your marketing communications needs.